Two Eyes

For my friend Jamie, for whom I have much admiration and love across the great divide.

I hate war
there is
no greater evil

everything in war
hurts
it hurts everyone

death is the
responsibility of many
on either side

but if you are
the stronger
you must see

not with one eye
you must see
with two eyes

protect yourself
through seeing
with your right eye

protect the innocent
by seeing
with your left eye

oh Israel open
your left eye
and see

you must protect
all of the children
not just your own

that will be the
only way to
protect your own

Israel my great
passion I love
you

but I must
ask myself for the
sake of my friend

you are my friend
knowing you across
the great divide

I know that
you too suffer
and I ask myself

what about your
friend your friend
in Gaza

your friend suffers
your friend may be
lost in the war

of the powerful
how can I wish
your friend well

when I cannot see
the Palestinian
minority

how can I pray
for your friend
whom I cannot see

I must first
open my left eye
to see to pray

peace cannot
come to one for
it will not be peace

peace can only come
to both sides or
it is not peace

war kills so many
more innocent
than guilty

somehow the guilty
seem too often
to escape war’s pain

there is too
much rhetoric
around the world

too much noise
being fueled by
too much opinion

turn your opinions
into prayers
for both sides

pray for peace for
both sides or it
will not be peace

yes today I will
pray for peace
peace for the children

peace for the women
peace for the old
peace for the young

God bring peace today
make a peaceful
cease fire to last

today I have two eyes
I can see from both
let peace reign in Israel

Even Today I Imagine

I imagine Mummy
She is listening for Doodle Bugs
Running past St James Square
They make a swooshing noise before
Hitting their targets
Windows are darkening now

As she scurries by them
Like a mouse
Shades being pulled down
All light receding till gone
She is heading towards St Paul’s
She is meeting with a friend

At the statue of St Ann
Dinner was soon to follow
Constant gray clouds of dust
Engulfed her in dirt
London was under
Aerial bombardment

The Luftwaffe would spend
Fifty-seven nights
Bombing the city and St Pauls
Wishing to eradicate it
From the face of the earth
This symbol of London and God

But London endured
St Paul’s remained standing
A symbol of British
endurance
Mummy lived to return home
To the USA

But I still imagine
Still I wonder
Was it the war that
Shaped her personna
Making her so harsh
She once said to me

During a phone call
Not long before her death
She said that
The war was the most
Thrilling period
of her life

I understand that feeling
I know what she was saying
She is gone
St Paul’s is standing
London thrives
Yet still I imagine

We all must come to terms with our upbringing. For some there is more pain to work through than for others. I had what one might call a proper upbringing. Yet still, one filled with my share of pain. My mother was not in London during the 57 nights of the Blitz. This was of course poetic license on my part. She was however living in London during 1943 and 1944 during WWII. She became a lifelong Anglophile. This fact set up some difficult goals for her children to attain for they were not living in Great Britain. They could not become British.

Sometimes due to her scrapbooks I feel as though I was there, in London during the war.

There was a time that I knew nothing about war. An experience that I had in 2005, dictated that I learn about war. Mummy never spoke of her work in London during WWII. She worked for the US propaganda office or the OWI – Office of War Information. I really never knew until I found two scrapbooks while cleaning out the family home. Finding these scrapbooks made me realize what a brave woman she had been. Instead of harboring resentment towards her (resentment that she earned) I came to have significant admiration for her.

I wish to redo these books as they are in a state of disintegration. However, it is exceptionally difficult for me to do so. I am very emotional about the subject. Politicians never give thought to the consequences of wars into which they enter. They have no clue as to the gravity of the collateral damage that accompanies their warring ways. The United States of course had to enter WWII. But, Hitler did not have to begin The War To End All Wars. That war like so many have touched people down through the ages, ages long past the end of the war in question. War shapes people for ages to come.

The following paragraph is taken word for word out from Wikipedia:

“On 31 December, the Daily Mail took the unusual step of publishing the photographer’s account of how he took the picture:
“I focused at intervals as the great dome loomed up through the smoke. Glares of many fires and sweeping clouds of smoke kept hiding the shape. Then a wind sprang up. Suddenly, the shining cross, dome and towers stood out like a symbol in the inferno. The scene was unbelievable. In that moment or two I released my shutter.” – Herbert Mason

The photograph was taken in the early hours of Monday morning and was cleared for publication by the censors to appear in the issue of Tuesday 31 December 1940.

His photo above in the Wiki article is one of the most famous of London of the period. For Londoners it was proof that London was still standing. For the Germans it was proof that she had fallen. Click on the Wiki photo below to enlarge and see St James Square today.

This poem is for the prompt by Victoria Slotto at dVerse instructing us to “Banish boredom thru verb use. Thank you Victoria – you sent me back a bit! I am grateful. You can find her poetry here.

Falluja

Sand blows across your boots
sharply raking your cornea
scraping your brain
arid is your heart
dry is your mouth
as voiceless sounds scratch
at your throat
wanting expression
with no escape.

Small dead hands
bleed in your dreams
breaking your innocence
as you weep for loss
into the night sky
with it’s ceaseless fire
it endows your sleeplessness.

One day you
will come home
the fires will wane
with hope
you will mend
where the earth
is not yet parched
your throat
no longer dry
you will walk
among pines
observe birds
standing in water
touch hands of
little ones
skipping stones
across streams
in joyful play.

You will see birds
high on the wing
leaking no jet fuel
but feathered in peace
you will lay down
your dreams change as
little pink fingers
grasp your thumbs in love.

Posted at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads – Open Link Monday.
© Liz Rice-Sosne

Once Young, Now Old

I am during this Thanksgiving, thankful for each man and woman who served in the Vietnam War. In the following poem I wrote from the perspective of one who fought there. I am grateful for all of our service men and women who are currently serving in Afghanistan and other places away from their families. I wish them a Happy Thanksgiving.

I am looking for criticism for my war poems. I welcome all and any. I will try out suggestions though I may not in the end use them.

Once Young, Now Old

I shift my focus now, go back in time and place to when I was a younger man and innocence had a face.

A time before I knew the things that I have come to know.

Like those long hot summer days.

We swam together naked, swinging off the low oak tree.

We’d drop into the swirling water laughing joyfully.

Our lives were gentle then, the pace was slow.

We would picnic in the forest as you held your hand in mine.

We ran chasing one another while we were young.

I was soon to be a man.

We lay upon the blanket as the sunrays licked the water that ran tickling down our backs.

Then gently we rolled over making love sweetly on the grass.

When autumn came I went away to school, it was learning that I sought.

But alas, I would stray until that fateful day.

The DOD came knocking on my door, its hand graciously stretched out to me.

I would be forever changed.

I saw it as my duty, a service to this land.

They offered me the promise that they would make of me a man

After basic, I said my goodbyes as we shipped out to Nam.

The place was a hot and seething hell.

Once verdant it had seen the Orange death. I saw way too many flame and fall.

This was a place where mosquitoes were as big as tarantulas and roaches ruled the day.

It seemed that hungry, deadly snakes there, hung from every tree just to make a meal of you.

The rats so big they stared and laughed at you when you had the chance to pee.

The ARVN and the ANZAC stood with us side by side in what would be the worst of wars that men had ever seen.

Together we watched each other’s back.

We fought the devil till he fell.

But the bastard, he got up again just to get us from behind.

Their faces gone, torn, ripped off, beheaded, shortened limbs left lying on the ground.

For that motherfucker Charlie ran way ahead of us sinking his lousy mines.

Always making sure that there would be many more to carry back to camp in pieces from the blast.

Our numbers dwindling now, and reeling from the loss, we looked for mail and wondered? Would she wait for me or Dear John me in the back? Was there another guy in her life now?

A hit of reefer dulled the pain.

Would we make it back alive or arrive home in a box?

They say we are the lucky ones. I came home to stay. She was gone.

Years later now, an old man, I lie awake most nights with insomnia my friend.

Jack Daniels always by my side … but like myself empty now and parched down to the bone.

My sleeplessness a sign that still today:

I am on the lookout for those I left behind.

Know this my brothers you still live within my heart.

My tears for you the only sign that today I am alive.

Posted at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

2008-2010 © Liz Rice-Sosne

Damn Vietnam

War really, really screws with the senses, the emotions, the body, the mind and everything else of which we humans are made. It destroys and contorts, it turns inside out, it twists and slices the emotions and the soul. When done with war if you are alive you are a different human being.

Can you? Do you go forward as this new you? Can you go back to being who you once were? No. Never. And this because you are now a different man or woman. But all of the hell that you have lived through can be chewed over and re-digested into something positive with very hard work. I tried unsuccessfully to place this at dVerse for Memorial Day. And, although not explicitly true to today’s theme – in reality it is. Found at dVerse for Synesthesia–Sensory Confusion, or…? dVerse Meeting the Bar.

Damn Vietnam

you have been home
some forty years
your rifle
under your pillow
each night
while you fire away in your sleep
I wonder why
for the war is over

Damn Vietnam

but it
is not over
no
it is 1966
all over again
the NVA
has just crossed the
DMZ
you are in the middle
of the biggest battle yet
five thousand
marines
you head north
Operation Hastings
Dong Ha
you have
arrived in hell
warships
and air power drive
them back
finally, after so many
are
lost

Damn Vietnam

you say nothing
until the whiskey
burns your throat
and the rage begins
its long climb up
as you attempt to
vomit out your hell
your war still there
on the surface
anger roiling
through your blood
you should be asleep old man
but your wounds are
deep

Damn Vietnam

last night looking up
into the trees
clouds sailing
across the moon
crows speaking
I listened
while they spoke
of knowledge
of wisdom
of healing that would come
to my brothers
who were there

Damn Vietnam

Posted at dVerse for Memorial Day in Pretzels and Bullfights – see the wonderful article by Laurie Kolp. Well, this is not quite true. I did not find a link to actually publish. It might be coming later. But do read Laurie’s article.

The Poetry of War – Writing It.

Why and how can a woman who has never endured combat and never been in military service to her country possibly write poetry about war, and be impassioned with doing so? Another question may be how can she do this with any authenticity? And here in lies the need to describe an experience that I in 2005. The experience has transformed my life. It was an experience filled with extraordinary joy and extreme pain. It definitely looked as though I was having a mental breakdown and it took unimaginable strength to hang on to my sanity. But I did so with a strategy. I will share the results of this experience before I attempt to share the experience. Following are many of the results.

1) I acquired a knowledge that: “we are all one” while in China the spring after my experience. As a result I spontaneously addressed a Chinese workers protest on a Saturday night by running up to the participating seated workers. They looked hopeless. This group was protesting the torturous and bloody treatment endured by a number of employees. I went from one end of this group of about two hundred to the other end. As I did so I clapped my hands loudly while yelling “yes, yes.” Now this was a crazy thing to do in China – but it was NOT something I thought about. They, the workers, in turn got up and started clapping. Smiles came upon their faces and we each knew that indeed “we were as one.”

2) I learned to fly a 1947 Luscombe 8 tail-dragger at 60 years of age.

3) 5 different Vietnam Veterans who had seen combat chose to share their burden of war with me anonymously. Please understand veterans of war do not speak of their experiences to anyone but another veteran if at all. These veterans just came to me like a magnet.

4) I acquired a deep and abiding love for veterans of war. Whereas in the past I had thought of the veteran 3 time s a year.

5) I volunteered for 2 years at the VA.

6) I express my appreciation to veterans when I see them.

7) I made a spontaneous decision to give up my fear of heights and did so as I stood with my feet on the edge of a 2600 ft drop (no fence or railing) at Machu Picchu in 2007.

8) I came to a deep understanding of the love my father had for me (which had seemed to disappear when I was only 6-8 years old). After this experience I was bathed in his love and came to understand that it seemed to disappear as a result of WWII Combat PTSD. He was dead when I had this experience.

9) I discovered my mother’s WWII scrapbooks from the time that she had lived in London as an American employee of the OWI during the bombings. Yes, her personality too was shaped by war and very likely by Combat PTSD. I say combat because to endure bombing and have no ability to retaliate – well that is the worst kind of combat to endure isn’t it? My mother was not nice to her children. And that is a kind manner in which to explain her mothering.

Because the spiritual experience that I had was so complicated I shall simply relate the bare bones of it. As is my way I put out there; “OK what next? What do you wish me to do?” I soon found myself looking for my father’s WWII history in a number of places on line, especially in a WWII forum. I met a Vietnam Veteran there, a B-52 pilot. He too was looking for his father’s WWII history. He assisted me in my search. Then I wanted to know about his own war experiences. I was persistent. He was hesitant. I persisted and he in a halting manner shared some of his experience. This sent me into a tailspin of contemplation quite literally. I was unable to eat (trust me I never stop eating) and the need to walk, walk, walk (I don’t exercise) took up most of my time. I lost a good bit of weight. I set myself up with an energy worker to keep me grounded and a personal trainer to help me do the same. At the end of this I went to someone who “sees.” She was only slightly helpful. This is key, I experienced this Vietnam Veterans “pain” associated with his war. That was the hell of this experience. I went on to do what I always do which is decipher things for my self. Now this happened in 2005 and the last thing that I learned from this experience, I learned in 2011. I went on to study war. After the experience itself was over, I came to understand that this was a shamanic initiation. I have studied and practiced shamanic healing experiences for many years. Please understand this is not a religion. I know much more than the average person about shamanism. Throughout my spiritual path beginning at 15, I have like many, asked for a “teacher.” The answer has always been “no.” I have always had to do everything in life on my own. That statement sounds like “poor me.” It is quite the opposite and is evidence of significant personal strength. Throughout the experience I practiced certain shamanic rituals to help me deal me with the emotional pain and confusion that I was experiencing at the time. I came to understand (feel) that war is the most addicting of all addictions. I also fully understand why it is so. I have a Christian background intermingled with indigenous spirituality, a smathering of Hindu, Unitarianism, Jewish Theology, Buddhism and what ever other languages God created and gave to the world’s different cultures so that they could each grow spiritually and communicate with the creator.

I have written this as an explanation or prelude to my writing a collection of “War Poetry.” I am going to attempt at some point create a separate page here upon my blog for those poems. I wish to have them published. Today I have been newly inspired or mused by “The Headlines of War.” Now I realize that I need to widen that inspiration to simply “The Headlines.” Thank you for taking the time to read my words. I have a great appreciation for your time. Below is the first poem of war that I wrote after my experience. There is shall we say “language” in the poem that might offend.

Photo Credit Use of Boeing-owned photos posted from their web site are licensed for private, non-commercial use only.

B-52s

I remember them.
Large black fins
in 67 & 8.
We’d drive to Kadena,
park the truck
watch them circle
like sharks
behind the security fence.
All we saw were black
shark fins … taxiing for take off,
B-52s lined up for Vietnam.
The NVA called them
Whispering Death.
Three years…860,000 pounds
of carpet bombing.
Rolling Thunder
coming out of U-Tapao,
Anderson and Guam.
They came in threes … Arc Light!
Coming from the 9th, the
22nd, the 91st, 99th, the 306th, the 454th, and
the 461st, they flew at 50,000 ft,
subsonic speeds, refueled in mid air,
carried 70,000 pounds of mixed ordnance.
Known with affection as BUFFS
Big Ugly Fat Fuckers
Operation Linebacker.
Ten, twelve hours in the sky
peeing in a sleeve,
freezing or scorched while
flying towards hell.
Clear left, limbs seen hanging
clear right, friends literally falling from the sky.
Then, the Christmas Bombings, SAMs brought them down
U-Tapao lost two in mid-air
One in each cell…one on final…the entire crew lost.

This is posted at dVerse Poets Meeting The Bar: The Unfathomable.

Syria, Syria

We did not know the young doctor and his wife.

We were sailing down the Nile and having dinner together on the upper deck twenty-two years ago. There was a warm breeze and an atmosphere of relaxed pleasure. Falucas in the distance glowed from the sun setting over their bows.

We had spent the day at Edfu with the God Horus in his temple.

Today as Syria is disintegrating, ordinary people are being bombed, raped and murdered. I think about the young doctor and his wife with whom we had dinner low those many years ago. Are they alive? Are they all right? Where are their children? She had been pregnant on that trip down the Nile.

We enjoyed one another’s company, dining together, socializing, just being. He was a good man.

In the Tomb of the Kings he was responsible for saving the life of an old man in near cardiac arrest, an old Jew.

We all played together, enriching one another’s lives taking pleasure in each other’s company for days. These were European Jews, Israelis originally from Yugoslavia, France, Italia and other countries, Jewish children, refugees of WWII and the Holocaust.

Two young Americans, two Syrians and about 6-8 old Israelis hanging out on a boat going down the Nile visiting the ancients.

Not long after awaking the next morning our boat sank. We were hung up in a series of locks while navigating a dam. When we finally pushed through, there was a gaping hole in the hull, the boat filling up with water very quickly. We were rescued by the Egyptian Navy and never saw each other again.

But I think of them today. I know that most if not all of the Israelis are gone. Then I think of the doctor as his country is in ruins. I wonder if he is alive – does he practice medicine today?

Is he an enemy of the state or a part of Bashar al Assad’s inner circle? I am sad when I think of him and his family. He gives to Syria a very real face of war in a way that the nightly news cannot do.

Two years now and 70,000 dead. Stirring and poignant headlines daily:

The Guardian: Syria: Bashar al Assad interview to be broadcast – live updates.
Milwaukee (AP): Parents talk about journalist kidnapped in Syria.
India Today: Armed and Courageous: Meet Syria’s women rebels.
Philadelphia Enquirer: The hopes and fears of secular Syrians.
USA Today: Obama warns of extremist threat in Syria.

Two years into the war and 70,000 dead. War again taking its toll on a people on its children. One man destroying an entire country, greed and power at the core of his soul.

Many have become refugees on the borders of neighboring countries, living in squalid conditions with some but little water and food.

Some have left bombed out homes and towns taking refuge in ancient forsaken cities that look bombed out themselves. They live underground in caves with dank air and little food.

They took with them remnants of their possessions; a torn blanket, a doll without her left foot, one large bent aluminum pot, a fork and spoon, glass jars and two pillows.
What will become of these people? Will the massive and significant government armed forces intent upon their destruction destroy them?

I think of the doctor, is he still alive? What side is he on? Sadness fills me yet again. Tears fall yet again for another war.

Syria, Syria another war, another loss.

This poem is posted at dVerse

Disgorged Words

What is it that I am putting off?
Surely I have examined the issue for a long enough period of time.

Dear reader are you doing what you are meant to do?
What have you put off doing that you should be doing?

First, I don’t call myself a writer, I don’t really call myself anything.
I have dabbled in numerous arts including poetry.

It never occurred to me to “get published.”
I have really never had the desire and yet that is meant to be the goal, isn’t it.

So, back to the “what have you not done that you ought be doing?”
That is my way of putting it on you, giving myself more time, procrastinating a bit more.

My life has been one of learning lessons.
Not just learning lessons as they come, but purposefully seeking out the lessons to learn.

There was a time when twenty-nine that I wished to pursue further spiritual growth.
But God said: If that is so, you will need to stop smoking.” Bummer.

But I did quit because I was more interested at that point in reaching my goal.
So what am I putting off now, today?

I am old now and still learning so why is it so hard to begin this task?
There are so many excuses, I don’t know how, I don’t have time, I don’t want to.

I have done the healing, done the forgiving, gone back, way back in time.
I have the answers. I know why she was the way she was.

So who am I supposed to write about? My mother is dead. My father is dead.
And I know nothing about memoir.

There you have it. How and where do I begin?
Isn’t it a bit presumptuous of me to wish to put this all down on paper?

OK, the computer?
I really, truly do not know.

Now playing at dVerse OpenLinkNight

Father’s Day Haiga

I adored my father as he adored me.  Sadly at 6 years of age this came to an abrupt halt.  AND I made many poor choices in the first 27 years of life as a result.  At the late age of about 63 or so due to a spiritual experience and several years after his death, I re-captured that love miraculously and bathed in it for about 3 months.  Happy Father’s Day to all fathers out there.

 

Photo from my father’s WWII album – B-17s on their way to Germany.

International Women’s Day … Occupy Blogoshere

During the News Hour last evening we listened to a piece on the horrors of living in The Democratic Republic of Congo, for women. This story is for me not new and one of the saddest upon earth. The women of Congo have been caught in the middle of a decades old war over the rich resources and precious minerals beneath ground. These women are systematically raped, murdered and tortured as tools of war. There is a long history of kidnaping children in Congo and inducting them into armies. This is because children have no fear and no conscience and are therefore willing participants. Children soldiers turn into the men who commit these acts against women with absolutely no conscience. As a result this is a country filled with sociopathic men. Last night’s piece was about a physician and his wife who started Heal Africa. Heal is an acronym related to their work of rescuing and healing the women who have been the victims of these atrocities.

I have always known how lucky I have been being married to David. He said something last night during the News Hour story that he has said many time in the past. Precisely he said to me: “I know I have said this before but I will say it again and again; if you gave your foreign aid to the women of this world instead of the men, governments or agencies, many if not most of the problems that exist in the world today would cease to exist. Hunger, war, poverty and inequality would greatly decrease if not disappear all together. To that end on International Women’s Day I write this haiku.

Credit here.

peace in each magnolia blossom held by woman